here it goes again.....

It has been a while but here we go again. Faith is in a downward spiral right now. All we can do is support her and be there for her until she feels better. She is depressed and to be honest Renae and I think some is her bipolar cycling and the other is her struggles she is having in school because of missing last year. She is a perfectionist and school is hard. She is also not on anything to help her concentrate and keep her from bouncing on the walls at school. She is in one of her vicious cycles that has not hope of stopping. She feels bad...she gets depressed...she misses school...she does bad in school...she feels like she is a failure...she gets mad...she goes into a uncontrollable rage...and it goes on and on. Cass can only help her so much. He cannot do much help when she goes into a rage. Tonight she tried to rely on him but it just wasnt working. This was expected but it is so difficult to see her doing so well and then see her spiral out of control so quickly. We knew it would have to happen...such is the deal with Mood Disorders...but no matter how much experience you have or how much anticipation or warning you have....I can NEVER be able to handle it...I can NEVER be able to watch her suffer....and unfortunately I will NEVER be able to take the pain for her. Kris

The weekend....

Ok so the computer is still not fixed...just a minor issue that I will figure out. Last week Faith made it over a huge hurdle. Instead of staying locked up inside the car not wanting to go to school, she went in. I may have rolled down the windows and went to sleep and told her we would stay in the parking lot until school was out, and I would take vacation days until she finally went in, but she saw that I was serious after two hours. She also had three different teachers come out and talk to her. The amazing thing is after school that day she realized that she can overcome those terrible feelings and go on and have a good day. We then spent the weekend at a marriage retreat, she finally overcame her fear of getting her ears pierced!!!! AMAZING...climb one hill and see the need to climb another!! Yesterday she started not feeling good, she is going through a cycle, extreme highs and now the lows. She basically does not feeling like doing anything, it is a struggle to even get up. She tried going to school and almost stayed the entire day, it is just tough to not lay down and do nothing. I know this feeling quite well. It is so hard to get up when feeling this way. I could just sleep for days, as I think she wants to, however it fuels her stress and anxiety because she is doing so well with school and does not want to fall behind. It is tougher this year becuase she did not go last year, and she is just now getting back into the routine. So our cycle continues, but she and Cass are troopers, he never leaves her side and his presence helps her accomplish almost anything, if not for herself then for him!! Kris

Vet visit....

Today Faith was unable to attend school. She "does not feel good", we think it is one of her down times or depression faze. She craves sweets, and she does not want to get out of bed. She was a trooper and went to the school, got of the vehicle and went into school. I gave this to her as a goal because before when she was like this there would be NO WAY she would even get out of the vehicle. She attained her goal when she was feeling absolutely terrible. I was so proud of her. She slept all day until we had to take Cass to the vet this afternoon. Although it is not required we had him tested like they do therapy dogs for how calm he is. I wanted to do it for several reasons. First there is a teacher at the school that brought it up and said it was a requirement on post. Second, I want to lay the groundwork for future service dog owners so I can know what they can expect. It has become a division policy to test all dogs that will attend schools or go in public places on post since there was a horrendous accident a few months back with a therapy dog attacking and killed a child in its backyard. There is not a very defined line around here between service and therapy dogs so Faith and I said "lets do it". Needless to say the two vets were very impressed with Cass and his training. They were also impressed with how he is with Faith. They spent about ten minutes with him away from Faith to see how he interacted with strangers, being alone, and getting startled. The vet went over the list and he scored perfect in every category. Again he is not required to do this testing, however we have been received so well at her school and here on post it can do nothing but help Cass and Faith, and also future service dogs on post. Everyday he amazes me with how much he is helping my daughter. It may seem like not much to the untrained eyes, but to someone who spends a lot of time with her or those that have known her it is an amazing transformation. She will make it to school tomorrow. These spells usually last a few days and then she will be her happy self again. My computer has died again so I am borrowing this one, thus the reason for not writing. I have just received a banner so it is time to register to do a bake sale/fund raiser for Little Angels Service Dogs at the PX. More information to follow. Have a great week. Kris

Third day of school...

So far so good. Faith and Cass are doing awesome. She is having a hard time with Math because she feels like she is so far behind everyone else in her class except that she really isn't. I try to work with her at night but after holding in all her emotions all day...well lets just say she is bouncing off the wall at night and then is out within a few minutes all of the sudden. She loves school and she loves being able to go. I think sometimes that Cass has finally validated her disability to herself. What I am trying to say is she has spent the last four or five years trying to be normal and to fit in. Now that she has Cass she can finally walk around in confidence knowing that she is different and it is ok. She would not have a service dog if she did not need him. And people now look at her and cannot say she has nothing wrong with her. The may not be able to see it, or feel it, or hear it....but it is there. And Cass just proves it to them. I have gotten emotional the last few days as I look back at how hard the last couple of years has been on our entire family. It has wore Renae out both physically and emotionally. It tears a mothers heart out when she cannot help her child and it breaks her down when she can never get any rest. Tess and Abigail, her sisters, have had to deal with being on the back burner too many times to count when Faith was not feeling right. They have had too many special or important events missed because Faith could not go, and it took both of us to try and control her. They understand, they love her, but they have missed out on some things that were important to them. They also have to spend so much time alone when the Army takes me away. Cass has had such a tremendous impact on Faith that we decided they both deserve their own dog to have as their best friend and someone they can talk to and be with when they are lonely, scared or sad. I think you have to be a military family and a family with someone who has a disability to truly understand what I am saying. Some people think we are crazy or wonder how can we afford two more dogs when we are still raising money to pay for Cass. Well I say back to them how can we afford NOT to??? Tess got a border collie/lab mix names Blu. She is beautiful and loves Tess so much and spends all of her time with her. We are treating Blu like Cass. Wherever Tess goes, while at home of course, Blu goes. Blu sleeps with her also and her kennel is in her room. We rescued Blu from the kennel on post, if we did not do this she would be put down. Abbi is getting a Chihuahua ( I have no idea how to spell it) from a dear friend of ours that was an aid to Faith when she was in first grade. It is one years old and loves to be dressed up and held all the time. Something Abbi really needs since her older sisters don't always want to play with her or be nice to her. Abbi will be responsible for her new dog also and it will stay in her room with her. Neither one of these dogs are puppies. Blu and Cass have become best friends. When Cass comes home from school we take them out to the field behind the house and they run together with a rope in both of their mouths and roll around for the longest time until they are exhausted. It is so great to see Cass be able to play and be a dog when he gets his "take a break" command. I created this blog to share our story. To help raise awareness of our daughters hidden disability. We are so open with our lives that it seems to backfire on me sometimes. Sometimes people have to give us their opinion on how we run our household or the decisions we make. Just as with the comments we receive with Cass, we have to ignore these and just keep on going. I am better than this than my wife is. It hurts when it comes from someone you love, even more when they are not around to experience what we do or walk in our shoes. I hope you all are enjoying this blog and I hope it has taught you something or even gotten you to maybe help someone else. Keep it going friends. Kris